Asthma experts have called for the introduction of a drug which has just been approved for treatment in the severest cases of the condition.

The National Institute of Clinical Excellence has recommended that Xolair, a monoclonal antibody, be provided for both adults and children.

However, access to the drug in Ireland is “severely restricted”, according to Prof Stephen Lane, a consultant respiratory physician at the Adelaide and Meath Hospital, Dublin, incorporating the National Children’s Hospital.

Currently, Xolair is not funded by any of the national drug schemes, but is paid for out of local hospital budgets. Some 450 people in Ireland are affected by the severe form of asthma but only half receive Xolair, Prof Lane pointed out.

He described the effect on two-thirds of people who take the drug as being “Lazarus-like” and the benefits of it persist even after the patient stops taking it. “It is an absolutely amazing treatment when it works,” he said.

He said the distribution of the drug was “very inequitable” with patients in the south of the country particularly hard done by. Doctors had been agitating for “years and years” to have it prescribed.